Not The Real Bludgers
by quilter
Summary: Some raising high the roof beam. PostWar, PostHogwarts, PostHBP.
1. Chapter 1

Discalimer// JK is the proprietor of everything HP. Well I am a fan, ain't I?

The revelry in the Burrow was as stark as a picnic in the Antarctic, now that the twins –Madeline and Adele- were back from Berlin for the summer. Their grandparents and the larger family spoiled the girls continuiously with bottled-up felicity until they and their father, Ron Weasley, sneaked away for some alone time before bed. Twins were ecstatic over that part of their homecoming the most because when their mother, Hermione Granger, interviewed them about it, the rehearsal of already well memorised hours with their father would increase the lightness in girls' feet.

Ronald Weasley, senior prosecutor for the Ministry of Magic, was 36 now. He had two eleven year old daughters and life after Riddle the Wizard Hitler pleased him. That is, it pleased him despite the fact that he was unmarried, a little overweight, and his children spent most of the year in Germany with their mother who was the Spokeswoman and Top Negotiator of the World Wizarding League. Nine years without Hermione always next to him often brooded Ron when he considered the circumstances of their most atrocious row and implicit break-up. At such times, he would sulk into the idleness and loneliness of abstract thinking that contrasted with his former sheepishness. No one really nagged him about it. In fact, Ronald Weasley, the man, had little patience for the shrew that had a redundant fever for the redundant fuss.

Two days before Madeline and Adele travelled to the Burrow, Hermione had owled Ron her courteous yearly letter of thanks. Ron often read the part about the girls' allergies or imperatives of parenting Hermione had always mentioned before he tossed it to Ginny or Mrs. Weasley who would owl her back another letter of cordiality. Hermione herself always stalked her daughters to the Burrow a week before they all headed back to Berlin. For a week, she would socialise with the Weasleys, the Potters and her parents, and spend seven nights of erotic intimacy with Ron. Their tacit agreement on this brief gallivanting was most peculiar. Though it scarred them further, they never abated those rounds of quizzical fornication, mostly because of the unknown of an otherwise future.

Ron walked into the Burrow's kitchen. It was early morning and others were still in bed. He breathed the briskness of oxygen until his blood throbbed enough nourishment into his no longer knocked-out vim. He heated some water for one of Molly's morning draughts, then sat down and re-read Hermione's letter.

_Dear Ron,_

_Girls will be there on the 7th of July. I am sorry that I had not owled you about this earlier. I want to be there at the Burrow for my back-together week. However, I plan for a longer sojourn this time since I want to be with Madeline and Adele till they board the Hogwarts Express for their first year at school. My parents are here with us now, and will most likely tour Germany after I am gone until late September. _

_Girls are really great. And they are first-class swimmers now, thanks to you. Still they do not have to spend all day at the pond, because they often forget about snacks and their afternoon naps when they are in the water. And please be careful about those sunburns. I thought you would be wiser about the fairness of skin in a redhead. Remember, a parent has always the right to a definitive 'No'. Twins still read as much as I do, but you will not have the usual cargo of books shipped this time. I bought them a copy of Hogwarts: A History. That should do it for now, but it is always best if you have an extra book when they are particularly restless. I absolutely do not agree with George that Maddy and Adele would be great as BEATERS! I would be most solemnly displeased if I see another bludger bruise on my girls. Remember, a brother has the right to a murderous 'No' or a spiteful hex when his daughters' uncles are out of line. And please do not make me owl Ginny._

_I will be with you on the 14th of August. My best to Arthur, Molly, Harry, Ginny and others. Talk to you soon._

_Yours_

_H_

Somethings never change. However these are the shimmering pieces of metal on a river bed that you would descry but cannot touch because of the gushing, jetting, and later glaciating estuary. Titanic extent of the ever-changing otherwise mocks the generous glow of the unchanging. Ron drank from his cup and then peered into the bottom of it where twigs of herb swimmed and dyed the hot water. His headache suddenly whirred a less jabbing buzz and he inwardly thanked his mother.

It was the 14th of August. His daughters' sunburns were whole lot better and they snacked and slept well enough. Harry had charmed two plastic balls so that these, and not the real bludgers, would harass the girls. So far so good. Of course, none of that was a breakthrough. Madeline and Adele would run to their mother when she was here with the glee of the happiest of children, and then Hermione would forget all about Ron's weaknesses as a parent. Hermione forgot about a lot of things, in fact, or did not remember them as well as she used to. Nor did Ron. He and she were now the pathetic dodgers in the London of their ongoing epic, and it was always the children who withstood the unpleasantness and the lather in those fables. Ron bit the flesh of his thumb and slacked into a semi-obscurant hypnosis.

A little later Ginny and Hermione simultaneously sauntered into the kitchen and immediately resorted to a merry roar. They greeted each other with the friendliest of anticipations. Much of their enthusiasm truly eclipsed the stillness of the morning. The two ladies later adjourned their hurrah as Ron sat up. He sidled over to Hermione and they clumsily kissed.

'Welcome back,' he said soberly and exited for the garden.

Ronald Weasley once had been the ardent votary of a goodnight's sleep, long afternoon snoozes and fugitive naps of sheer leisure. In short, he was fond of hybernation in any of its myriad formats. That had been so until their potions professor murdered Dumbledore and he, Harry and Hermione embarked on an expedition that was the Horcrux Battue. Ron had never tucked himself in for sleep before his two friends did for two years. It had been a very abrupt change, but then Ron was never seemingly sorry about it.

Ron prowled into the bedroom after his latenight shower as Hermione rubbed some moistener over the skin between her knees and her ankles. Ron on the other hand toweled the moist in his short hair.

'Did you get my letter?' said Hermione languidly.

Ron tugged in for the letter he had earlier pocketed in his bathrobe and wagged the parchment before he chucked it onto the bed's sheet.

'Did you read it?' she scolded.

'I did.'

'And?'

'Well, it was very concise, was not it?'

'Concise?' Hermione bickered.

'It had not said much.'

'At least I still send you letters.'

'What do you want me to do? Become a bloody Gildroy,' Ron shrugged.

'You are not fooling anyone, Ronald. If you do not want me to be here for more than a week, you might as well be honest about it.'

'Bunk with us as much as you like. I am more than happy to do my bit.'

'What is that supposed to mean?'

'It means that I never was the one who shooed you away.'

'You know what you are supposed to do, if you want me back,' Hermione snorted.

'I want you back. And the girls to be with me all the time. But I am not going to do more than what I think is right. You have always known that, and it is still up to you. So do not push it unless it is up the hill.'

'It is never going to be over with you, is it?' Hermione said with a gashing burn in her throat.

'What are you on about?' Ron inveighed.

'To you, all has been downhill for so long, Ron. And I do not mean us. Your Moody makeover is almost at its finis.'

Ron undressed his bathrobe violently. He was almost reckless with the sad piece of garment.

'I do it so that someone won't hex me or some other innocent bystander into extinction in some tower or in the peace of their home when that someone should have been in Azkaban all along and not herd with soon-to-be casualties,' he argued madly.

Hermione's hands lingered on her womb, then she hove and snivelled quitely into the softness of her knees. Ron could have snubbed it all, however he was not ready for that bit of stale cruelty. So he cowered next to her, groped her thighs and cuffed her into a firmament of tenderness. Hermione did not balk, the multitude of tears that now salted her skin had been there for some time. And she wept nothing in excess of that latent sorrow as Ron salvaged the moistener tube, squirted some of the oily coldness into the pit of his palm and rubbed it in over Hermione's legs gently.

Somethings just thin out as hair does or the mascara does. Time in fact is the thinner of all things. Nothing withstands the flood of time and its shredding procedure. And the real bite is in the ridicule that is the nothingness of all things vis-a-vis time. There had been all this time for Ron and Hermione and now there was never enough time for the two together. With time, they bowed to the sickness that is the middle-age and the ever-shortness of time itself for a rebirth no longer vexed them. There was not enough time so that they together would do something about the things that have for so long thinned out between them.

The thick door opened and in walked Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived Longer Than Anyone Thought He Would.

'Hey,' he saluted, 'Are not you Hermione Granger, my other best friend?'

'Hey you,' said Hermione and walked over to him for a decent greeting.

'Long time no see.'

'You always say that.'

'Well, that is because it is always true,' Harry announced matter-of-factly.

'I am sorry, Harry.'

'Yeah, you are sorry that Ron is a git. Right?'

'Please don't,' Hermione rebutted and lowered her head so that her sniffs would be inaudiable.

'What is wrong? What did he do this time?' Harry was curious.

'Nothing. He did nothing,' she sighed.

'He did nothing, that is what he did wrong,' Harry grimaced to himself and thought worse of self-censoring as Hermione coughed a laugh.

'Ginny taught you well. That said, you two should not be that close. Think about it, she is still very much a Weasley.'

'Hey, I am a blissfully wedded man and my wife is the most heavenly redhaired woman with the sweetest of temperaments that ever lived in the British Isles and perhaps in the far territories of the world that I have never been to, so so much the tosser..'

'Good for you,' Hermione bantered half solemnly.

'I am not indebted to Ginny alone, you know. Other Weasleys have been there for me as well. One in particular had done so much. And he can still humour the mickey out of me sometimes. He is our Ron yet.'

Hermione nodded a trivial nod.

'Harry, I am not here just for the girls. I have some business at the Ministry as well. League Secreteriat wants me to lobby for certain changes in the penal and legal system over here. And I do not think Ron is going to like it.'

'When did Ron ever like anything the League has come up with?'

Hermione was quiet.

'How bad is it?' Harry's juvenility suddenly stagnated.

'Reforms for trial procedures, for arrest and custody, for the terms of prosecution. Wizard Rights thorough and thorough. It is about real change, Harry. So that we can finally live our future.'

'Did you talk to him?'

Hermione was once more quiet.

'Talk to him, Hermione. Better sooner than later,' Harry said.

'That was my plan as well. Oh, Harry. I am such a child. When he is next to me, everything that once was right and ideal strays into a corridor with gray walls and ... and memories spoil all my efforts ...,' Hermione was ecstatic, 'my efforts at ...'

'Love?' said Harry.

'Or deroling,' she finalised and sat down. Harry knelt next to her, touched her knees and stared at her with understanding.

'Be ready for some real shenanigans, Harry. I am going to be really selfish. He says he wants me back. Well, I am back.'

'Is that what the bags are for?'

'Quite right. Girls and I will be at Ron's house for some time so he can kiss his bachelor days good-bye.'


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer// Copyrights. I have none of those. JK Is Our Queen. Poem is Burns' 'To A Mouse'. And before I forgot again, dying bananafish is from Salinger's 'A Perfect Day for a Bananafish'.

A/N- Where am I going with this fic? Well, it has something to do with Salinger's short story. Do not think me taciturn. It is just that I am hoping that all this dust and gas will explode into something coherent at the end as well. In the meantime, please let me know if you think something is fishy about my fic.

Londoner and Berliner Go Out In the Midday Sun(Chapter 2)

Ron lived in an apartment in mid-way between Paddington and Hyde Park. He bought it three years after Hermione went off to Berlin. Here was one of the bizarre parts of London. It was expensive living away from an expensive downtown, a London away from London. This unconventional locality feigned a royal timelessness, a warp of today after today after today. Ron was particularly fond of this nebulous circumstance and his occasional walks to Hyde Park. There he could always be alone despite the cavorting collective nearby mostly because world was thankfully orbicular and the park generously shut the urban ugliness out. When he had had enough, he was not back to some wizarding park but to that park at which Muggles convened out of schedule as fellow contortionists away from their mutilating routine. All this was a little off. Ron lived next to Muggles, and he often run away from it all to a spacious neck of the woods that was equally muggle.

In short, Ronald Weasley was the wizard in captivity at the museum of existential contradictions.

One of those contradictions –Hermione- was back with him, at his home. They rode the taxi there earlier that afternoon. She marvelled at the fact that Ron even had a key with which he casually opened the door. His daughters did not of course consider it curious that their father was no longer the diehard pro-wizarding wizard he had once been.

Ron was anxious for one of his walks and girls were in on the plan. Hermione, though not forthright reluctant, was not particularly gallant about it.

'I always go there before dinner, that is when I am around. It is good for,' he was hesitant for a second, 'all unsought anxiety.'

'Well then. Green lights are on. Here goes the anxiety,' Hermione, former Head Girl at Hogwarts, bragged flatly.

The sunset at Hyde Park in late August was a beautiful phenamenon. For many, the revery was that they would burgle the largest casino in Europe next, book into a suite at Ritz afterwards and never stir outdoors unless it was for a walk in the park. After some long strolling, Ron and Hermione sat inside the tall stone garden furniture for that intoxicating adieu of daylight.

Hermione could not do anything else but stare at Ron, almost aghast with his abrupt languor.

'Ron?'

Ron listened.

'Thanks,' she said, 'thanks for all this. It is beautiful. I ...'

'Sun had been here long before I was, Hermione.'

She narrowed her eyelids flirtatiously.

'I am sorry. I forgot. You are you. You are always you. Despite all these changes. So far from the Burrow and your friends, are not you?'

'The best laid schemes of mice and men. Go often askew,' Ron half-singed Burns' poem.

Hermione almost bit her tongue but soon enough half-singed the other part, 'And leaves us nothing but grief and pain.'

'For promised joy,' he sighed. 'Adele taught me. Nice actually.'

'Oh. So you and twins do that sort of thing now. You study poetry with them?' Sponteneity was one of Hermione's best fortes when there was so much subtext to Ron's words.

'It is not optional. So much of them is ... well ... you. They are bossy like hell.'

That scandalised Hermione, 'Bossy? My girls are not bossy. They have a tender temperament. Not a bossy one. And we never talk about poetry. It is always Quidditch. Worse than you and Harry, they are.'

'Be that as it may. I do not remember any of them mention anything about Quidditch ever. Not even to Harry or others. That said, they are good at it though. Have you seen them on a broom yet?'

'Once or twice,' she remembered, 'so you think I am bossy then? That cannot be right.'

'Right? NO! No right is nearly right enough next to that bit of fact. It is something more.'

'Hah. Since you are such a connoisseur of facts in general, what you got to say for yourself?'

'Well, I am the Boris Becker of the wizarding world, aren't I? Dead sexy and etcetera etcetera etcetera' etcetera part was particularly a good spoof of Yul Bryner in King and I.

'You tawdry, arrogant, pretentious ...,' then Hermione considered the Boris Becker bit a second time, in less partial terms, 'alright, you in tight shorts may deceive others but not me. Besides you are not an athlete or even athletic any more.'

'That was harsh,' Ron cavilled.

'Was it?'

The light was a blink away from darkness. Madeline and Adele walked up to their mother and father with a sulk that only children at a certain age have after some over-the-rim frenzy. One that often has underneath it a 'I am so hungry' or 'I am so sleepy' or such sullen neediness.

'Hungry?' Hermione inveigled. Girls nodded. 'Hungry, Ron?'

'Yes. I think I am. Hungry and unathletic. And I am proud of it.'

'Can we eat out tonight? It is awfully nice outside,' said Adele.

'Alright,' Ron agreed.

Then the four of them walked out of the park and into the pavement. Hermione scuffed next to Ron, they were right behind the twins. 'Herr Ronald _Boris_ Weasley, are you always this generous with your daughters?' she slightly coquetted.

'Mum,' Madeline scolded immediately, 'it is not _Boris_, it is _Bilius_.'

Before their night-out, they all went back to the flat for a change of dress. Under half an hour, Hermione already had a pastel green gown and a pair of very low-heeled black shoes on without any make-up or hairdo. Ron on the other hand had a black silk jacket, a white high-collared shirt, and a charcoal trousers on over a pair of dark brown suede shoes. Madeline and Adele had worn very chic cotton dresses both of which had a bleached incandescence.

When Hermione was at the threshold of the living room finally ready with earrings in hand, her daughters and their father unthinkingly sat up into a crescent of laurels for this exceptional woman in their lives. Three withches and the wizard dined with Londoners that night and they were utterly happy.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N- I will be sticking to dialogue format from here onwards. I do not get my stories beta-ed. I hope this is not much of a turn-off -my punctuation is dreadful, is not it?. Matisse bit is true(and was in fact part of a documentary most likely aired on BBC). And please let me know of the things that does not make much sense to you. I will try and edit those parts.

Punch Bag With A 'Achtung' Sign(Chapter 3)

Matisse once told an interviewer that he hated macaroni. Macaroni was his least favorite food. Interviewer's next question was 'What is the most important thing in life?'. To that Matisse harangued, 'Friendship'. Two went on with the interviewing. Rita Skeeter would have been proud.

'Have I ever told you about the Spatte incident?' said Harry.

'I heard about it. But no. You've not.' Ginny waited.

'So you know what went on there?'

'I know that it is not something anyone would feel good about knowing. I have not heard anyone mention it for awhile in fact.' She waited a second time.

'No, I suppose not. It has been so long,' he sighed.

Then she did not wait, 'What is it, Harry?'

'What is what?'

'You said it's been so long.'

'Did I? I meant it was a long time ago.'

'Hey, alright? A Knut for your thoughts.'

'I was just thinking... what Ron and Hermione are doing right now?'

'What is that got to do with Spatte?'

'It is hard to explain really.'

'Take your time.'

'That is a tad bit condescending, do not you agree?'

'I will let you know when the condescending is really real, Scar Boy.'

'Ginny, I never told you about the Spatte incident... well...'

'Well, yes?'

'Well because I wished it to be part of something... something as good as dead,' he blinked his eyes close.

'And it is not? Dead?'

'That is the thing. It is not for me to say.'

'Who else then?'

'I think it is best if I tell you everything.'

'Everything would be fine, Harry. I can do "everything". I married you, did not I?' Ginny then touched Harry's eyes so that he would unblink them. She had to be both maternal and galvanic towards her man over the years. And she was good at her Jakyll/Hyde timing.

'It was a long time ago. Nine months after Dumbledore's funeral. Into the second month of Fred's death, to be even more exact. Nothing much had changed during those two months. Ron was still with us, still at it like it was the first day. Going after the bleeding Horcruxes was something that needed a lot of holding it together. Lot of patience. Especially with all the distraction. Distractions that were so dramatic. When friends elsewhere soldiered on. The killing anticipation, ... it was horror within horror.'

'I understand, Harry. Everyone does,' Ginny argued.

'But Ron kept all quiet and did not give into fury. Niether Hermione nor I suspected anything, after all he, between the three of us, was... had more... he just always had taken the hardest blows. Always. As far back as I remember. Your brother, Ginny, is this gigantic punch bag that no matter how hard you knock it it just hangs there with mocking might and when you hit him with the nastiest gusto he would most likely brachiate back at you with the said gusto. Punch bags do that. Precise like a pendulum, yet so easy for bystanders to forget about their inbuilt stamina.'

'Go on,' Ginny said softly.

Harry did exactly that. 'One Monday morning, Ron told us that he would be off to Grimmauld Place. He said he needed to see Arthur and perhaps stir further to Fred's grave. It was the morning after we had had a breakthrough with one of the Horcruxes. It had been one of the few times that we did not have any dodgy business with all the inferno. So anxiety for once was at its lowest. Or so Hermione and I thought. Six hours later, Ron still had not been back so we flooed the Order. Lupin told us that he had never been there and that no one had seen him that day. But something was off. Lupin seemed way too introverted about it all. Later we learnt that on Sunday Daily Prophet had bruited about Death Eaters and their latest garrison at this seaside locale –Spatte.

'Order, needless to say, Apparated right away at Spatte and looked everywhere. They did not however come across any garrison. Ron of couse knew better. He knew that Voldemort had been particularly fond of grottoes and about his horrific in-and-out methods. Ginny, he planned it all. He went after him, Fred's killer. He went after G. He waylayed until he arrived with four others. Then they all died while Ron Apparated and Disapparated behind each one of them. Sometimes Side-Along Apparating them into the line of fire. It happens all so fast. Death Eaters hectically hex each other until only G. is left. Ron takes him outside. He does not tug in for his wand. No, he knocks G.'s face into an amalgam of blood and clot with atrocious fists. He fractures the bloke's jaw, one of his collar bones and clouts his pharynx until G. suffocates.

'Then... then he goes back down to the grotto in cold blood and grenades the alcove into pieces with Fred and George's Magic-Mortar-Mines. Four days later when the Order captured Pettigrew they learnt that luckily there had not been any hostages there that day but six more Death Eaters had died a slow death inside. Hermione found Ron that night next to Fred's grave. G.'s carcass was there as well. A memento, so to speak. Later Tonks described the Spatte incident as the day Ron became an...'

'An assassin,' Ginny was on tiptoe.

'Right. Though you know how she is. She says something in Tonks. And often it is more blunt than true and it sort of sticks with you because of that.'

'This is not "everything" though, is it?'

'No, it is not. At the time, everything was far from over. A lot of people, even some members of the Order considered Spatte Incident as a feat. But for some of us, it just pushed things farther away. Ron made it all so real, for me at least, that what we were doing was killing someone Horcrux by Horcrux. And that there would soon be a time when I had to do it in less trivial terms. So who were we to resort to reproach and remorse for what Ron had done?'

'I suppose, in war one of the first things you learn is that justice and persecution, cowardice and heroism are so many bridges over the same Nile. This of course does not change a thing. If anything, in war you are more of a junky for illusions than you would ever want to be. We were back together. The three of us alone. It was best when we were. No matter what, we took care of each other. That never was an illusion. And it was not long before we came to terms with the truth.

'Nothing happened during the days that followed but at night Hermione cried. And we listened. Each night she would cry once all of us were in our beds. I never stopped her, did not stir out of bed once to say something kind or unkind, anything that would make her forget momentarily. I knew it killed Ron and I knew that he wanted me to do something about it. And I did not do anything. I was afraid.'

'Did not Ron do anything?'

'On the morning of the fourth day, at breakfast, Ron finally did do something.'

'What?'

'I will never forget this. He said to us that he had known that there would be consequences to his actions. And that he would gladly pay for his wickedness when the time comes, but he would do so alone.'

'Stupid Stupid Brother. Poor, Impetious Man,' Ginny was furious, 'Pathetic Prat.'

'Perhaps I should not have told you all this.'

'Harry Potter. Will you ever give up patronising me for good?' Ginny shouted.

'I was not. I? Will you ever stop being scary for good?' Harry was the smuggest of the smug.

Ginny thought about the concept and snorted, 'No.'

A/N- Punch bag is not a phallic symbol here. As much as I like Freud, I do not agree with much psychoanalytical reductionism in his approach. This story hopefully would follow American tradition of play-writing in that under scrutiny is not conscious/subconscious confrontation but social confrontation in which real antagonism is exposed.


End file.
